My mind went straight to my sister, Sammie. I wondered how she would’ve enjoyed this interaction with Oliver. I wondered if she would’ve been irritated or completely smitten with the drunken man in front of me. I wondered if she would’ve sung along with him.
When we entered my apartment, I was finally able to let him go. He stumbled back and forth, running into side tables and lamps—which I caught before they shattered to the ground.
“Okay,” he muttered, as if someone had said something to him.
“What’s that?” I asked, confused.
“Bathroom,” he said, swaying back and forth.
“Right, of course. It’s right over—” I started to gesture toward my bathroom, but my words were cut off by the sound of a small waterfall happening behind my back. I whipped around at the speed of light to find Oliver, my idol, my celebrity crush, peeing straight into my houseplant. “What are you doing?”
“It needed water,” he mumbled.
My breath caught in my throat as I stared in shock. Even in his drunken state, Oliver Smith wasn’t lacking down below. My cheeks felt as if they’d been set on fire.
I turned my stare away from his body, trying to shake off the awkwardness of the whole situation. “Well, uh, perhaps we should get you to sleep. You can crash on the couch if you want and—” I glanced back toward him, and my eyes widened when I saw that now not only was Oliver showing me his lower half, but he seemed to have taken off his T-shirt, too, revealing his shredded abs. It turned out even whiskey couldn’t take those away.
And somehow, Oliver managed to slip completely out of his pants and boxers, so now there he was. Standing butt-ass naked in my living room with his hands on his hips like Superman, still swaying back and forth.
Just how I envisioned my first-ever night alone with Oliver—having him stand as a drunken, naked superhero.
“What are you doing?” I gasped, trying not to look at his penis, but still, kind of looking at his penis.
“Let’s do this,” he hiccupped, wiping his penis hand against his mouth again.
“Do what?”
“The sex.”
The sex?
He actually said “the sex.”
“What? No. We aren’t having sex, Oliver. Put on your clothes.”
“Why are you naked in my house if we aren’t having sex, then?” he asked, hiccupping as he gestured toward me.
“Um, what?”
I legit had to look down at my body to make sure I was still fully dressed and hadn’t accidentally tossed my clothes to the side of the room due to my idol standing before me.
It was clear that he was so far gone that he hadn’t even a clue what he was saying. I wondered how embarrassed sober Oliver would be when morning came and he realized his actions—if he’d even remember them.
I cringed at the uncomfortable sight taking place in front of me. “Please just put on your clothes, Oliver.”
“You put on your clothes first,” he argued.
I glanced back and forth around my apartment, somewhat thinking I was oddly being Punk’d. Or perhaps I’d slipped into a coma somewhere along the line, and all of this was a very weird manifestation of my mind.
Either way, I needed Oliver to put on his clothes, because the longer he stayed naked, the more uncomfortable it all became. Yet he seemed determined to not get dressed until I put on my clothes first.
So, like a complete weirdo, I began putting on invisible clothing in front of him.
“Okay, all dressed,” I stated, placing my hands on my hips.
“All right, I’m going to bed.” He lifted up all of his clothes and headed to Reese’s bedroom. Before I could stop him, he was already crashed headfirst into her twin-size bed.
And there he was, folks. My Prince Charming, butt naked, passed out on my daughter’s Disney princess bedsheets.
Oh, was it a sight to see. I had to say, his butt was quite plump in all the right ways.
I closed the bedroom door and headed straight for my kitchen for the bottle of two-buck wine I kept in the top cabinet for emergencies.
After that night, I needed a drink.
Or maybe the whole bottle.
5
OLIVER
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I awakened with the strongest pounding to my head, completely unaware of what had taken place the night before to get me to that level of pain. I groaned as I felt a repeated poking feeling in my left side.
I groaned again as I sat up on my elbows. My head felt as if it was splitting into two from the simple sitting-up motion, so I lay back down. Why did my face hurt so much?
“Hey, mister, are you dead?” a voice asked.
A small, tiny voice.
Why would I be in a place with a small voice? I opened my eyes and looked over to the tiny figure standing beside me. A young girl stood there repeatedly stabbing me in the gut with a Barbie doll.
“What are you doing?” I muttered. “Where the hell am I?” I asked, swatting my hand toward the doll for her to stop.
Her mouth dropped open. “You owe a quarter to the swear jar!”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“That’s two quarters!” she exclaimed before stepping back a little. “Hey, mister. Are you dead?”
Based on how my body felt, there was a solid chance I had died at some point the previous night. The verdict was still out if I’d gone to heaven or hell. “If I were dead, would you be able to talk to me?”
“I don’t know, maybe. I never talked to a dead person before.”
“What is this, The Sixth Sense? Am I Bruce Willis?” I groaned, pinching the bridge of my nose. As I touched my face, more pain shot through me. I’d had rough nights before, but never one so painful.
“I don’t know what any of that means,” the kid remarked.
“Then, yes. I’m dead.”
She gasped and then hollered, “Mom! The man in my bed is dead!”
I opened my eyes once more and looked around. Why was I in a child’s bedroom? What happened to me the night before? What was going on? Who would put a stranger in their child’s bed?
Then it all started flooding back to me. The show last night . . . the show I abandoned. I ditched the performance last minute and wandered off to some random hole-in-the-wall bar to get plastered. Everything after that was a blur, including how I ended up in the bed of a child.
“Reese! What are you doing? I told you to stay out of here,” a woman’s voice whisper-shouted as she walked into the room. She grabbed the little girl by the shoulders and ushered her out as she complained the whole way.
“But Mom! There’s a dead man in my bed!”
“He’s not dead!” the woman remarked; then she glanced at me with a raised brow. “You’re not dead, right?”
I shook my head slightly.
“Oh, thank goodness. I couldn’t survive being responsible for that.” She breathed a sigh of relief. “See, Reese? He’s not dead. Now go brush your teeth. I don’t want to be late dropping you off at camp.”
She complained the whole way out of the bedroom. Seconds later, the woman reappeared in the doorway with a plate and a glass of water. On the plate sat a doughnut and a bottle of ibuprofen.
I pushed myself up to a sitting position and gripped the side of the twin-size mattress. The back of my hand brushed against my mouth as I looked up at the woman. She was stunning. Beautiful, without any effort at all.